This civil association has in its DNA the collaboration, the search for synergies that benefit its sector. But today more than ever, the Cluster de Herramentales de Nuevo León (Nuevo Leon Tooling Cluster, CHNL) has set itself the goal of accelerating the common pace between companies, the state government, educational and research centers because the demand and needs of the industry, economic flows and new technological trends force all actors to combine all possible efforts for the sake of modernization.
To this end, the Cluster, focused on tooling such as plastic molds, stamping dies, casting molds, attachments, fixtures and machined parts in general, has set three ambitious objectives, according to a recent joint planning, which its director, engineer Alfredo Peña Morales, summarizes as follows: first, to increase and contribute to the national integration for the manufacture of tooling. This, which sounds easy to say, has a very specific goal: that in five years the sector will be able to generate a billion dollars in production value annually. Today such value reaches 400 million, which is a truly ambitious goal.
The second objective has to do with the formation and training of technical human resources, the idea being to be able to train 1,000 people who can become tooling experts. The third point that CHNL has proposed is the development of at least 100 collaborative projects between companies and universities or research centers in order to enhance competitiveness.
Clearly, the training of technicians in various areas related to tooling is one of the top priorities. Engineer Peña Morales emphasizes that in these four years of the Cluster they have focused "on training, creating technical groups and training programs with our companies; the instructors who carry out the programs are provided by these companies, which are the ones that have these types of specialists".
During FABTECH Mexico, the details of each of these initiatives will be presented in order to modernize and take advantage of the niches of opportunity that are opening up for companies and professionals in the sector. Since all tooling and machined parts have to do with the transformation of steel and special steels, they are definitely involved with the metal-mechanical industry.
Coming to Mexico
The tooling sector, but in fact the entire metal-mechanic chain, is at a crucial moment to develop a bigger and better supply. The director of CHNL explains: "On the one hand, there is the T-MEC, with the increase in regional integration, especially in the automotive sector, which makes companies look for a local route. Another issue is the trade war between the United States and China, and what this has brought in the last two years in high logistics costs. And another factor is that in the North American partner countries there are many employees in tooling companies who are already in their retirement age and the new generations there do not find it attractive to work in that sector. Companies are moving their workshops to Mexico, with all that that means.
This migration brings with it new needs that must be met, and if Mexican companies do not do it, others will. That is why, insists Alfredo Peña, it is important to make inroads into 4.0 technology, embrace the digitization of processes and be able to remotely and automatically measure the performance of machinery, workshops, factories and industrial centers. "Especially small and medium-sized companies should see this, this is a trend that we have seen in the cluster companies."
Another trend, which is not yet deployed in the country in full force but will soon become popular, is related to additive manufacturing. "For certain components we are already starting to use this manufacturing or three-dimensional printing for certain components, the tooling market will increasingly require to make parts in particular, unique."
The CHNL is in contact with peers such as the Tooling Cluster of Jalisco and the Mexican Association of Mold and Die Manufacturing of Querétaro. However, the Nuevo León cluster is very proactive in training on basic topics such as predictive maintenance, engineering change, stamping, coatings, die setting, plastic molds, flood welding, forging tooling, laser welding, and so on.